A Doxastic Community Approach to Christian Scholarship

Greg has served on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ for twenty
years. Greg earned a Masters of Arts in Philosophy from the
University of Rhode Island (1990) and a PhD. in Philosophy (1995)
from Syracuse University where his dissertation on God's relation to
time won a Syracuse University Dissertation Award.

He has taught philosophy at Syracuse and is currently faculty at the
Rivendell Institute for Christian Thought and Learning which is part
of the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ at Yale. Greg is also
adjunct faculty at the International School of Theology. Greg has
also worked as a teaching fellow and reader in the philosophy
department at Yale University.

He has published academic papers on God's relation to Time, Free
Will, and St. Augustine. He is co-editing an anthology of new essays
on God and Time for Oxford University Press as well as writing a
monograph on the same topic.

Introduction

In recent years there has been an explosion of Christian Scholarship in several pockets
within the mainline Academy. Such scholars as Alvin Plantinga, George Marsden and William
Alston have had much to do both with constructing the bomb and with lighting its fuse. In
their research and publications as well as in their teaching and doctoral supervision,
they have proved that it is possible to be both wholly converted and thoroughly engaged in
scholarly practice.{1} From time to time, they
have turned their attention to questions about the nature of Christian scholarship.
Professor Plantinga, in his famous address, argues that, if we claim to be Christians, we
ought to do our work Christianly.{2} That is, we
ought to take what we know as Christians into our scholarly endeavors in shaping the
questions we address, in choosing our methodology and in determining which conclusions
ought to be embraced. Professor Marsden, in his most recent book, has been presenting
arguments to the broader academy that it ought to welcome Christians who do their work
from unabashedly Christian perspectives.{3}

These arguments indicate how Christian Scholars straddle a rift between two
communities. We have one foot in the Church and one in the Academy. This position is not
always comfortable for those doing the straddling and it is not always understood by those
on either side. Those firmly entrenched solely in one community or the other often doubt
whether one can inhabit both without compromise. In the Church some have believed that a
commitment to scholarship inevitably leads to the rejection of or at least a revisioning
of the faith. In the Academy, it has been heard that Christian concerns inhibit the pure
and open attitude necessary to the scholarly pursuit. To be sure, these doubts are not as
prevalent now as they were thirty or even fifteen years ago, but they are still expressed
in both communities.

While it may be the case that the idea of Christian Scholarship is accepted more
readily today, I think it is also the case that the communities of the Church and of the
Academy have less in common in terms of their basic orientations and world views than in
recent memory. The task of straddling these two communities requires quite a stretch.

I want to explore the nature of these communities and how each functions in the work of
a Christian Scholar. Specifically, I am interested in the relationship between these
communities as they function in our belief formation. I believe there are valuable
insights to be gained by thinking of these communities as Doxastic, or belief forming,
communities. In order to uncover these insights, I will take a brief detour through the
sometimes treacherous terrain of epistemology.

Doxastic Practice Epistemology

Recently, William Alston has been defending what he calls a doxastic practice approach
to epistemology. We can begin to grasp his project by considering arguments for the
reliability of our sense perception. Alston points out that any argument which we might
give for its reliability will use premises which themselves can be justified only on the
basis of sense perception.{4} There is a circle
here although it is not a straight forward logical one. Alston calls this kind of circle
an epistemic circle. In these arguments, at least one of the premises is justified based
on sense perception. If sense perception turns out to be reliable, then the premise is
justified and the argument is successful. The most we can show without falling into
epistemic circularity is that if sense perception is reliable, then we can show that it
is.

Alston takes sense perception to be paradigmatic for all of our doxastic practices.
Memory, introspection, and logical reasoning are also infected with epistemic circularity.
If our arguments for the reliability of these basic doxastic practices exhibit epistemic
circularity, what stance ought we take regarding them? Alston writes:

Given that we will inevitably run into epistemic circularity at some point(s) in any
attempt to provide direct arguments for the reliability of one or another doxastic
practice, we should draw the conclusion that there is no appeal beyond the practices we
find firmly established, psychologically and socially. We cannot look into any issue
whatever without employing some way of forming and evaluating beliefs; that applies as
much to issues concerning the reliability of doxastic practices as to any issue. Hence
what alternative is there to employing the practices we find ourselves using, to which we
find ourselves firmly committed, and which we could abandon or replace only with extreme
difficulty if at all?{5}

Rather than opting for skepticism or throwing in the towel in some other manner, Alston
argues that it is reasonable to continue to engage in those doxastic practices which are
well established socially and which would be psychologically difficult to avoid. Therefore
we should continue to regard our sense perception, memory, introspection and faculties of
rational inference as generally reliable.

Doxastic Practices and Doxastic Communities

Alston's analysis of these basic doxastic practices provides a way of looking at how we
form beliefs as Christians and as Scholars. Not only do we engage, like all people, in the
very basic doxastic practices of sense perception, introspection and so on, but we engage
in more sophisticated activities which are doxastic in nature. As a Christian, I
participate in a family of activities by which beliefs are formed and sustained within me.
This family includes participation in liturgy, in worship, in listening to sermons, in
studying the scriptures. I also engage in the responsive readings of the psalms, in the
sacraments, in meditation, prayer, and in discussion. My everyday religious experience,
which Alston calls "Christian Mystical Perception" is also included. For the
most part, these activities are not engaged in isolation. I enter into them in the
community of Christian people.

This family of practices may lead me to form beliefs. For example, in
listening to sermons and studying and discussing the parables of lost sons in Luke 15, I
form beliefs about how one can be obedient and respectable and still be lost. In addition,
some of the activities of the Christian Community help sustain my previously
formed beliefs. Years ago, I began to hold that I have a responsibility to respect those
Christian missionaries, martyrs and thinkers who went before me through the faithful
preservation and articulation of the gospel. Taking part in the liturgy, especially
reciting the Nicene Creed, deepens my sense of the historical continuity of the church and
strengthens my commitment to this belief. We can see, then, how the practices we engage in
with the community of the church are doxastic in nature.

As a philosopher, I engage in another family of belief forming activities. This family
includes various aspects of analyzing arguments, disputing conclusions, proposing
alternative answers to controversial questions, recognizing and evaluating the entailments
of specific claims, uncovering disputable assumptions and refuting anticipated (or stated)
objections. These activities are learned and pursued in the community of other
philosophers. To be sure, there is a good deal of overlap. I engage in some of the same
activities in my research that I engage in with the community of the church.

Many of the practices I engage in as a Christian and as a philosopher are what we may
call "higher level" practices. In order to engage in any one of these I use such
"basic" practices as sense perception, memory, reasoning.{6} Higher level doxastic practices will be infected with epistemic
circularity at least in so far as they are dependent upon basic practices which exhibit
such circularity. Of course, there may be higher level epistemic circularity as well. It
is tempting to think that some arguments for the claim that Jesus is God Incarnate are
epistemically circular. That is, if they rely on an appeal to the New Testament as Divine
Revelation.

Some higher level practices are community based in ways that others might not be. By
this I mean that there are strong community based boundaries which delineate which beliefs
or conclusions fall within the commitments of the community and which fall outside. Both
the practices of the Christian community and those of the Academy are community based in
this way.

The community based boundaries limit how far one can go and still remain consistent
with the main thrust of the community. Is it possible to stray so far as to remove oneself
from the community altogether? After all, Church History records great concern with
various heresies and I suspect that there are academic heresies as well. It seems as
though it is up to the community to decide what will constitute its defining commitments
and what counts as straying too far. Both the Church and the Academy define themselves
accordingly. The creeds functioned as sketching the boundaries for orthodoxy. If I hold
beliefs outside those prescribed, I am no longer Christian. In the academy there has been
talk about an orthodoxy of method as well as of belief. Orthodox methodology is that which
determines what is real scholarship and what is spurious. This distinction has been
especially prevalent in the sciences. Now many have pointed out that the way science
actually works often differs greatly from the way it is advertised but, nonetheless, the
community has defined which methods or approaches are acceptable and which are not. It is
the case that in both the church and in the academy there are differences of conviction on
exactly where and how to sketch the boundaries. It is also appears that some of the
boundaries may shift over time. It is now the case that science is not required to be
deterministic as it once was. Psychology was once considered too humanistic to inform
practical theology. Now it is welcomed with open arms.

Individuating Practices and Individuating Communities

If it is a given community which determines what falls within the boundaries of
acceptable belief and behavior, the question emerges as to how we individuate doxastic
communities. We can shed some light on this issue by turning again to Alston's account of
basic doxastic practices. Alston notes that individuating basic practices is somewhat, but
not completely, arbitrary. How we group activities into practices depends somewhat upon
our reasons for wanting to group them together.

One way of cutting the pie will be best for some purposes and other ways for other
purposes. I am assuming that any plausible mode of individuation will group mechanisms
into a single practice only if there are marked similarities in inputs and functions, but
that still leaves us considerable latitude.{7}

The approach he recommends individuates the doxastic practices according to the type of
input and the type of output. Sense perception can count as a single practice because it
takes the same type of inputs (sense experience) and produces the same kind of output
(sensory beliefs.) We could, if we wanted, split up sense perception into vision, hearing,
tasting, smelling and touch since these modes each have their own specific kinds of inputs
and outputs. I think the higher level practices may be individuated in similar ways. So
the doxastic communal practices can be individuated by the type of activities involved or
by the communities in which they are acquired, practiced and regulated. In the case of the
Church and the Academy, it is not that the practices of these communities do not have
anything in common. Indeed, all higher level practices are based on the same basic
practices. Furthermore, many higher level practices are held in common by different
communities as well. I evaluate arguments when I listen to sermons as much as when I read
journal articles. The Church and the Academy differ significantly, however, in at least
two ways. First, in spite of some overlap, they do hold different sets of inputs and
outputs to be acceptable. Second, they differ as to how the boundaries are set and
maintained. In the Church there is a legitimate appeal, as input, to the authority of
scripture, tradition and creed as well as to the reasoning process. In the Academy, there
may be covert appeal to authority as long as it is to the authority of the scholarly
community or to the proper methodology. As far as outputs are concerned, in the church
supernatural explanations are expected while in the community of scholars, such
explanations are granted reluctantly if at all.{8}

Doxastic Communities and Three Questions about Christian Scholarship

We have been looking at the Christian Scholar as participating in two Doxastic
Communities. One value of seeing Christian scholarship in this way is that it sheds light
upon some of many of the questions which have surrounded the claims of Christian scholars
about their work. I wish to point to three issues in particular.

1. The Value of Scholarship

One question which may be raised concerns the value of scholarship. Every discipline
promotes the idea that it is important. Some do so by reducing other disciplines to it. I
used to think that all of biology could be reduced to chemistry and all chemistry to
physics. Another reductionistic strategy for grounding the value of a discipline or
research project is to show how it is related to some item of practical concern. On this
view, for example, if some research into plant hormones may yield side results with
medical applications, that project is considered valuable.

Christians often ground the importance of scholarship reductionistically as well.
Scholarship has value if it promotes the concerns of Christian community, specifically in
persuading others that Christianity is true. Now one of its values is that it can promote
the truth claims of Christian faith, but there is more to tell. The Christian Scholar can
ground the importance of her work nonreductionistically. It is what we know as Christians
about God and the world and human flourishing which makes scholarship an utterly worthy
enterprise. It is primarily because God is the creator of heaven and earth and of human
beings that grounds the value of investing years in understanding plant hormones,
regardless of any possible medical application for the research. It is the doxastic
community of the Church which forms and sustains those beliefs which ground the high value
of our scholarly projects.

2. Negotiating Beliefs formed by different Communities

What happens when a belief which is formed by the right application of the set of
activities in one community falls outside what is acceptable in another? This second
concern is the common plight of the Christian scholar. Plantinga treats this with great
insight in his lecture.{9} He warns us not to
allow the assumptions of naturalism and anti-realism to put a straight-jacket on our
commitment to the reality both of the supernatural and of the natural. Plantinga reminds
us that we know things in virtue of being Christians and this knowledge is every bit as
credible as anything we learn through our activities as philosophers. We know God is real
and that He created a real world. We do not have to show that Christianity is true or
rational before we can bring this knowledge to bear on our scholarship.

3. The Mission of the Christian Scholar

A doxastic community approach will help us define the mission of the Christian Scholar.
Besides those beliefs whose content is relevant to the content of my research, there is
another sort of belief which I form through my involvement in the community of the church.
These are beliefs about my mission in the world as a Christian. These beliefs too ought to
shape my scholarship deeply. God has a redemptive mission for the world and He has drafted
His people into this mission. As Christians we are called to embody God's redemptive
mission to the whole world. This includes our roles as heralds of the gospel but it also
involves our redemptive engagement with all that is created and fallen. In other words, my
deepest priorities must be kingdom priorities and kingdom priorities are redemptive. I
cannot be content merely to pursue a faithful execution of my scholarly opportunities. I
must make God's aims my own and His aims are transformative.

Taking a thoroughly Christian view of my mission, I find that the horizon of my concern
is broadened considerably. I am forced to reckon with questions I would otherwise pass by.
For example, I must consider a challenge raised by Charles Malik. In the, 1981 Pascal
Lectures on Christianity and the University, he asked, "What does Jesus Christ think
of the University?"{10} Discovering what
Jesus Christ thinks of the university is an issue which seems quite removed from the
question of how to be a Christian philosopher. It is not only about the individual
Christian scholar and her work. It is also about the university itself- the institution
and our mission to it. But if the beliefs which govern my understanding of my mission are
formed and sustained in the Christian Community, they will include this broader redemptive
scope. How to be a Christian philosopher, or how to be any kind of Christian Scholar, must
include how to think about the institution of the University redemptively.

The mission of the Christian Scholar is shaped by the priorities of the Kingdom of God.
This mission is redemptive and transformative. It aims at deep change in the lives of
colleagues and students, as we help bring them into contact with the living gospel. It
also aims at the transformation of the disciplines in the university. The Christian
Scholar labors and prays to the end that the assumptions and projects pursued in
philosophy, history, sociology, and the natural sciences will reflect the truth about God
and His world. The Mission of the Christian Scholar also aims at institutional renewal. We
long for the transformation of the university itself so that the ethos, the policies and
the influence of the institution will reflect the truth as it is found in Jesus Christ.

Throughout this paper I have used the metaphor of straddling to describe the Christians
scholar's relation to the two doxastic communities. In light of our reflection upon our
mission we discover that this might not be the most apt image. We do not stand paralyzed
with one foot on the dock and one foot in a boat which is slowly drifting away. Rather we
take our priorities and values from the Church and we fully engage the Academy. We
discover our fundamental life commitments in Christian practice and we work them out in
our scholarship. We have our life priorities set by the concerns of the community of the
Kingdom of God and we live out those priorities in the arena of the world. It turns out
that there is a better metaphor to describe the relation the Christian Scholar has to the
two communities. It is not original. In fact, St. Paul applied it to his own ministry as
well as to ours. We are ambassadors.{11}

Notes:

{1} This is not to deny that there has been
significant Christian Scholarship at the many church affiliated colleges and universities.
The recent explosion occurred in mainstream Academia. Certainly scholars at the Christian
schools had some part in this as well.

{8} In this discussion I do not mean to imply
that either the church or the university is made up of only one community. Both the
academy and the church are comprised of many different, overlapping communities.

{9} See also his "Twin Pillars of
Christian Scholarship" (Stob Lectures Endowment, 1990). I discuss this negotiation in
"Copernicus, Christology and Hell: Faith Seeking Understanding," forthcoming in Philosophia
Christi.